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5/05/2006

Dysfunctional behaviors and other finds ...

I've recently added a tag to my Del.icio.us called "MustBlogThis" to help me keep tabs on those great finds I come across in my day-to-day travels that strike me as information I'd like to share. This find from How to Save the World is definitely one of them and explores dysfunctional information behaviors (he's identified 25 so far) and the evolving behavioral deferences between how babyboomers and millennials assimilate information. Here's a few thoughts that stick out to me...

Millennials/Gen Y (born between 1980-2000) are more likely too "manage information through 'continuous partial attention' -- not multitasking, but continuously browsing for richer veins of information and switching among them" --- a nice distinction between doing lots of things at one time and using many different channels to mine information from at the same time.

To better reach this group, we should "understand the power of the network and viral communication. Once they come to believe, accept or learn something, they'll spread the word quickly and effectively." --- I haven't seen much chatter in Library circles about viral communication yet (with the exception of MySpace), but I find this adaptation of "word of mouth" facisnating. Viral communication (an extension of Viral Marketing ) involves the use of the internet and social networks to communicate and create a buzz. Have libraries even begun to tap into this yet to begin to market our services better to the younger set? The first big step of course is jump into it and discover what social networks are all about. :)

"Help them filter and mediate information, since most of the crap comes from our generation. As Bill Maher says, "the job of the media is to make what's important interesting". Be their media." --- Nuff said! There's great opportunities here for libraries to help in this area, but we need to meet this generation in their space, not ours.

Anyway, read the whole essay and then ponder how libraries can assist ...

1 comment:

I think the Second Life Library 2.0 is an attempt to reach social networks that are playing Second Life. It doesn't operate the same as MySpace, but it definitely seeks to reach users where they are at.